1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card typified by an electronic card incorporating an integrated circuit such as a memory or a micro processor (CPU). Further, the present invention relates to a booking-account system of a dealing content in the case of using the card as an ATM card (automated teller machine, which is also called a cash card).
2. Description of the Related Art
Only several ten bytes of data can be memorized in a magnetic card that can memorize data magnetically. However, an electronic card (IC card) incorporating a semiconductor memory, normally, can memorize about 5 KB of data or more. The IC card can memorize much more data than a magnetic card. Further, the IC card has merits as follows: the IC card does not have a risk that data is read out by a physical way such as putting iron sand on a card, different from a magnetic card, and that data memorized in the IC card is not easily falsified.
It is noted that a category of a card typified by an electronic card includes an ID card used as a substitute for an identification paper, a semi hard card having flexibility such as a plastic card, and the like.
In recent years, an IC card has been further sophisticated by being provided with a CPU as well as a memory. The application thereof is wide-ranging, for example, an IC card is applied to an ATM card, a credit cart, a prepaid card, a patient's registration card, an identity card such as a student card or an employee ID card, a train pass, a membership card, etc. As an example of the advanced function, an IC card for which a display device that can display simple characters and numbers is provided and with which a keyboard to input numbers is provided is described in the reference 1 (Reference 1. Japanese Published Examined Application No. H02-7105).
As described in Refernce. 1, a new use becomes possible by adding a new function to an ID card. Nowadays, electronic commerce, teleworking, remote medical care, remote education, computerized administrative services, electronic toll collection (ETC) of an expressway, image distribution service, and the like using an IC card are to be put to a practical use and it is considered that an IC card will be used in a wider field in the future.
As an IC card is used more widely, an unauthorized use of an IC card is becoming an unignorable problem. A future issue is an improvement of security of personal identification on a use of an IC card.
Printing a picture of a face in an IC card is one of measures for preventing an unauthorized use of an IC card. It is possible, by printing a picture of a face, that a third person can identify a person to be identified at a glance without saying anything when the person uses his/her IC card, if such identification is not performed in an unattended terminal equipment such as ATM. An unauthorized use can be prevented efficiently in the case where a security camera that can take a picture of a user's face at close range is not provided.
However, in general, a picture of a face is transferred to an IC card by a printing method, and thus, there is a pitfall that the picture of a face is easily changed by forgery.
The thickness of an IC card is thin, generally 0.7 mm. Thus, it is necessary to provide a larger number of integrated circuits having a larger memory capacity or a larger circuit scale within the limited area for sake of highly sophisticated functionality when the area on which the integrated circuit is mounted is limited.